Muñoz's solid start not backed up by Marlins offense

[Kevin Barral]

After exploding for six runs the night before against a left-handed starter, the Marlins were limited to four hits and held scoreless against Mets right-handers.

MIAMI, FL—The Miami Marlins looked to make it back-to-back wins against the New York Mets on Saturday afternoon. Roddery Muñoz gave them a solid chance by delivering his best start in more than a month. Unfortunately, the lone run that Muñoz gave up would wind up being the difference as the New York Mets pitching staff dominated the Marlins. For the first time this season, the Marlins lost by a final score of 1-0. This also marks the 11th time that they have been shut out in 2024.

Making his third start against Miami this season, Luis Severino went six shutout innings, striking out seven, walking three and allowing two hits.

"99 (mph) at the top is pretty tough to hit along with a really good sweeper," said Marlins manager Skip Schumaker following the game. "You had a combination of the really good sinker at times and you can go four-seam at the top and the backdoor sweeper to the lefties. Really good strike-to-ball pitch against the righties that gave our righties a lot of trouble. He's a good pitcher."

Severino generated 12 whiffs on the afternoon. Seven came on the four-seam fastball, which he elevated up in the zone. The veteran right-hander frequently fell behind in the count, throwing first-pitch strikes to only 40% of batters, but the Marlins could not take advantage.

On the Marlins side, Roddery Muñoz went five innings of one-run ball, striking our five and walking three. Much of the rookie's struggles have come because of home runs (15 HR in 56.0 IP), but this was his third straight appearance without allowing one. The longest batted ball against Muñoz was a 360-foot Francisco Alvarez flyout. It would have been a homer in 12 of 30 MLB ballparks, according to Statcast.

Alvarez came up again in the top of the fourth inning and drove in what proved to be the only run of the game. Muñoz loaded the bases by surrendering a double to Pete Alonso, hitting Mark Vientos with a pitch and walking DJ Stewart. New York's young catcher grounded into a force out to bring Alonso home.

Like Severino, Muñoz generated 12 whiffs, spreading out his arsenal well with his top two pitches being the four-seam and slider. The cutter was his third-most used pitch, but still generated five whiffs.

Left-handed batters had an OPS of 1.093 off of Muñoz entering the game. That improved a little bit on Saturday as Mets lefties went 2-for-7 with two strikeouts, though also three walks.

"He was at the top and I thought the slider was good," said Schumaker. "Backdoored it and then he could wipe it out underneath down and in...It was just a really good job by him."

The Marlins bullpen did "a really good job" themselves. Bryan Hoeing, Andrew Nardi, Huascar Brazoban and JT Chargois combined to allow only two hits, two walks and struck out four. Entering Saturday's game, the bullpen ranked fifth in MLB in fWAR (3.7).

The Marlins had an opportunity in the bottom of the eighth inning to tie the game after back-to-back base hits from Jesús Sánchez and Otto Lopez. Right-hander Dedniel Núñez struck out Nick Gordon swinging on three straight pitches to end the inning.

The Mets clinch their 50th win of the season as the Marlins suffer loss number 64. The third game of the series will be on Sunday at 1:40 pm with Trevor Rogers taking the mound for Miami and Christian Scott for the Mets.

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[THOMAS JOSEPH]

Tough loss, especially for a team so desperate for quality starts. The top of the order's LOB numbers stink.